The recall, announced earlier this week, includes products featuring Elmo, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert and Dora the Explorer. And grown-ups take note: Among the dangerous toys is something called the “Sesame Street Giggle Drill,” which is being sold as some kind of children’s construction tool — but I suspect based on the design has also been purchased extensively as an adult sex toy.

Once again, the problems are lead paint-related, and I have to ask: Is it so freaking hard to make a toy for babies and toddlers without covering it in a coat of poison? It’s not like these were G.I. Joe knock-offs that were being sold at a 99-cent store in the Tanforan Shopping Center. We’re talking about the Cookie Monster Saxophone and the Giggle Gabber Ernie!

I’d understand if this was the Carter administration, when all playground equipment was covered in two coats of lead paint, and then dipped in arsenic for good measure. But this is 2007. Who even makes lead paint any more?